That said, as a woman on a bicycle, you're going to get men yelling crap at you. Once I was on my bike and I got cat called by a couple of men on a freaking cell phone tower. Its ridiculous. I'm older, wiser and fed up with that sort of crap now, but it definitely used to unnerve me when I was younger.
I'm not a man, but I get the feeling that men are less likely to get yelled at (not that it doesn't happen). I'm sure they get the typical "you're not a car" sort of thing, but a woman on a bike is going to get that, plus "hey, baby, I'll go where you're going" and such.
So, I guess I'm trying to say that I'm not sure if its once in a lifetime or not. Sometimes you just have get on your bike and ride because that's how you want to live your life.
I think this is well-put.
Looked at in terms of mustachianism, yes, the stock market might crash for the first 10 years of your retirement, breaking the 4% rule we've been relying on. Is that small risk worth staying in your job forever?
I will also say my experience and observation has been that the younger the woman is, the more shit she gets from men. So, to the OP, your experiences now will probably be quite different from when you were a teenager.
Pet peeve time. My understanding, from the one time I looked up the numbers (and I'm fine with being corrected), is that women are not actually more likely to be victims of violent crime than men. Indeed, once we start comparing crimes outside the home committed by strangers, women are far less likely to be victims. Now, granted, this might be because women live less risky lives. But we should ask ourselves, the next time we base a decision on the idea that the world is a dangerous place for women, where we got that idea from. Odds are it's from the news media blowing the stories of a few photogenic females out of proportion.
The other thing I've noticed is that women assign too much weight to
potential violence. I fully understand that being cat-called is unpleasant, but it's very different from being attacked and I really have very little patience with women who conflate not feeling safe with actually not being safe. Someone I know was commenting on that woman-walks-through-nyc-for-ten-hours video. I thought that video was interesting and made a good point about a challenge women face. But this person said it backed up their paranoid feeling about being out in public in the city. And I'm like, how in god's name did you get from A to B there? The woman walks through nyc for 10 hours, seemingly unaccompanied, and despite numerous catcalling and creepster moves,
nothing bad physically happens to her. I interpreted that as proof catcalling does not equal danger.
men never, ever understand this concept no matter how many times you explain it to them.
Please do NOT, however, continue to denigrate an entire gender just because you think your ideas are the only ones that are correct or worthy. Shame on you. How would you feel if I wrote "Most women are just weaklings who will never assume responsibility for their own safety"? Not cool, right? See the parallel yet?
You can learn to recognize and respond appropriately to dangerous situations. You can also learn to curtail your own sexism before spewing it all over the internet. I suggest you start with the latter.
For what it's worth, I didn't interpret this at all as you did and I'm curious why you did. I didn't at all read it as a put down or that she felt that your contribution wasn't welcome. Maybe the difference is I read the two paragraphs as separate thoughts. I didn't think she was using the second one to justify her disagreement with you in the first.
And I don't think it's denigrating to suggest we can't know another's experience entirely. I wouldn't find it sexist for a guy to say women can't understand what it's like to be a guy. I once startled a woman really badly late at night. It was cold so I was wearing a big coat with the hood up and she was distracted by her phone and didn't notice me til I was almost on top of her. I thought the experience was funny and interesting. I wouldn't conclude from that that I have a man's understanding of an entire lifetime of women in isolated situations perceiving you as a threat. Maybe I'm giving TrMama the benefit of the doubt that that was the type of idea she was trying to get across and there might have been a better way to put it.